Washington Post

Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree.

A grand jury indicted Dixon on 12 counts, including four counts of perjury and two counts of theft over $500. She was also charged with theft under $500, fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary and misconduct in office.

The State Prosecutor’s Office, which has been investigating corruption at City Hall for nearly three years, said Dixon received holiday gift cards for four years from several people. Prosecutors said the gift cards were to be distributed to needy families, but were instead used by Dixon to buy electronics - including an Xbox, a PlayStation 2 and a camcorder - clothes and other merchandise and also handed out to members of her staff.

Ed Morrissey adds:

Most of the charges involve her relationship with a developer, Ronald Lipscomb, and her acceptance of thousands of dollars in gifts without disclosing them on her records. She allegedly used a city employee to launder $4,000 from Lipscomb to fund a shopping spree. Dixon and Lipscomb conducted an affair with each other while married to others, and at the same time, Lipscomb’s company did business with the city, receiving tax breaks from Baltimore for some of their projects.

The worst allegations involve the gift cards. Dixon allegedly received several of these cards, which were given to her to pass along to needy people. Instead, Dixon allegedly decided that charity begins at home and used them as gifts for friends and family, or for herself. When her home was searched, several of the cards were found still unused by Dixon, given to her by Lipscomb, who apparently designated them as a charitable donation. Another developer gave her 20 such Best Buy cards, worth $25 each, and Dixon used 19 of them for herself.

Mayor Sheila Dixon stole gift cards for the poor and needy, plus had an extramarital affair to boot!

Who does she think she is? Bill Clinton?

Hat Tip: Hot Air

At least the Democrats acted like adults this time and did not walk out in protest like the past two elections.

Also, did you see Nancy Pelosi start an applause? G-d, I hate that bitch.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Senate Democrats plan to accept Roland Burris for President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant seat.

Breaking News…

Developing…

UPDATE 1: Fox News.com

Senate Democrats plan to accept Roland Burris for President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant seat, the Associated Press reports.

After being rejected Tuesday when he tried to join the class of incoming senators, Burris is expected to meet with the Senate’s top two Democrats — Majority Leader Harry Reid and assistant leader Dick Durbin — on Wednesday in the hopes of securing their support.

The likelihood that Burris, a Democrat, will become the Senate’s only black member after Obama’s resignation from the seat, increased Tuesday when a key chairwoman got behind him, cracking what had been united public front by Senate Democrats against an appointee of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Senate officials in both parties, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for Senate members, have said there is a growing expectation in the Capitol that the saga will end with Burris being seated.

Blagojevich shocked Democratic leaders by appointing Burris to finish the final two years of Obama’s six-year term in the Senate just three weeks after the governor was arrested on corruption charges in what federal prosecutors said was a scheme to sell or trade Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Governor Blagojevich’s race card ploy worked.

The United States government is not bailing out General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, also known as the “Big 3″. The United States government is bailing out the United Auto Workers union by way of giving money to the Big 3. By doing this, the Big 3 can meet the payments due to their retired union workers, as well as guarantee future retirement payments, health care payments, and other compensation benefits. President Bush and the Democrats and Liberals in Congress are all in collusion to commit $15,000,000,000.00 billion theft of my money, of your money, and the American taxpayer’s money. (And don’t forget the $700,000,000,000.00 billion grand larceny that was payed to American banks.)

The management in the United Auto Workers union should be changed, and the United Auto Workers union contracts need to be re-written, especially when it comes to health care and other benefits. Democrats, liberals, and the United Auto Workers union treat the Big 3 as health care providers who make cars on the side. It is like mini-Socialism, and that is why the Big 3 are in such debt.

The Big 3 are at fault as well. They should change management at their top ranks and hire Chief Executive Officers that can actually turn a profit. Also, the Big 3 should tell the United Auto Workers union to go to hell, fire all of their union workers, and hire non-union workers. The reason why Wal-Mart is such a success is because they do not allow unions. Unions stifle the growth of businesses and deplete the bottom line, which is to make money.

Also, when it comes to “government manufacturing standards”, the Big 3 should tell the government to go to hell as well. The Big 3 cannot create the cars that they want because they have to meet government quality standards such as miles-per-gallon. More powerful engines are banned by de-facto because cars will not be able to meet miles-per-gallon requirements and other idiotic government standards. The American consumer should have the choice of driving a gas-guzzling Sport Utility Vehicle that gets 5 miles-per-gallon, or a compact car that gets 40 miles-per-gallon.

Liberalism has burrowed its way through Capitalism and that is why we are in a recession. Socialism for the rich is in full effect. Rich banks will keep their bailout money by not lending to the middle class. Car manufacturers will continue to make the same management mistakes and continue to expect, and receive, government bailouts because they are “too big too fail”. Perhaps if the United States government wanted to exercise true Socialism “for the people”, they should give all adult American citizens $3,000,000.00 million dollars. As a consumer nation, the American automotive market and housing market would become profitable almost overnight! But, that will never happen, even when liberal politicians promise that exact same consumer utopia.

As always, Liberalism is at fault. Liberalism, like Socialism, are broken promises.

And unfortunately, true Capitalism is dead. I wonder if it will ever be resurrected.

From Drudge Report:

Democrats prepare to move forward with investigations of the Bush administration… Developing…

This will be just a waste of time and money. Thank you, Democrats.

Why not investigate the illegal foreign contributions to Barack Obama’s campaign? These are contributions that number near $200 million. At least there is actual evidence available to the widespread corruption inside Obama’s campaign.

UPDATE 1: The New York Times has its new article posted.

If President-elect Obama is truly smart, he will tell Congressional Democrats to not waste their time and our money.

Now, it is good.

Business and Media

What’s in your wallet? Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean would like to know.

Dean and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan were speakers at a luncheon at the National Press Club Nov. 5, where both reflected on what went right and wrong with their efforts during the 2008 election cycle.

Dean revealed his party used credit card data to predict voting outcomes. However, Democrats and the media have been highly critical of credit card companies that provide that data.

“We now can do what they can do,” Dean said. “We have your credit card data like they do. They’ve been for years doing something that we, until 2006, weren’t able to do. We can predict with 85 percent accuracy how you’re going to vote based on your credit card data without bothering to see what party you’re in – the Secretary of State’s office.”

“They’ve been doing it for a long time,” Dean said of Republicans. “No wonder we’ve been throwing rocks at the bottom of the well. These guys – we can argue about how well they run the country, but they certainly know how to run elections.”

Dean’s admission that his party is using credit card data in elections is curious because a plank in the Democratic Party’s 2008 platform vows to regulate that very instrument through a “Credit Card Bill of Rights”…

Howard Dean and the Democratic Party are hailing the same Data Mining technique that President Bush wanted to use in order to stop terrorism, but the Democrats cried about “privacy rights” for terrorists.

For Democrats, unfortunately, they put their liberal party first before their own country.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Reuters.com

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be “humiliated,” without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.

“O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

Libi, one of the top al Qaeda commanders believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God’s wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.

The remarks were the first comments from a leading al Qaeda figure referring, albeit indirectly, to the U.S. elections. Muslim clerics often end sermons by calling on God to guide and support Muslims and help defeat their enemies.

In 2004 al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued his first video in more than a year just days before the elections to deride President Bush and warn of possible new September 11-style attacks.

Bin Laden made little mention of Bush’s Democratic challenger John Kerry, telling Americans: “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands and each state which does not harm our security will remain safe.”

Whatever.

This is a direct endorsement by Al Qaeda for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

Al Qaeda knows that it is the Republican Party and Republican and Conservative leaders, along with our brave U.S. military, that have the balls to fight Al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

I hope this video tape is leaked.

breitbart.tv

Wow! I did not know Jerry Bruckheimer and Gary Sinise were conservatives.

I do not think conservative Hollywood actors will have a hard time finding work. However, the people that work on movie sets, such as cameramen, editors, set designers - the “little” people - if they advertise they are conservatives, they may not get work. Does anyone think that a “go-for” for Sean Penn will have a job the next day if Penn brings up politics and that person says they are conservative?

Anyways, I hardly go to the movies anymore. I just order whatever movie I want on DirecTV.

Reuters.com

Vatican officials seldom single out political leaders who differ with the Church on issues like abortion rights or embryonic stem cell research. But now that the Vatican’s highest court is led by an American, the former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, we can expect things to get more explicit in Vatican City — at least when when it comes to U.S. politics.

Burke, who was named prefect of the Vatican’s Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature in June, told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked “transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues.” He then attacked two of the party’s most high profile Catholics — vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion.

He said Biden and Pelosi, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way.”

I believe Archbishop Raymond Burke is almost spot on, however, not all Democrats are pro-abortion / pro-death. There are Democrats, both in the political arena and American voters, that are pro-life. Also, not all Republicans are wholly pro-life because they support abortion in cases of rape and incest, such as Vice President Dick Cheney. Some Republicans, unfortunately, are pro-abortion / pro-death, such as former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Personally, I find it disgusting that any Catholic Christian politician, regardless of political party, has the gall to receive the Eucharist, and then support pro-abortion / pro-death legislation. This same personal sentiment applies to Catholic Christians that are pro-abortion / pro-death advocates. Abortion is murder, and murder is a sin. Any Catholic Christian that does not understand that needs to read the Book of Exodus, chapter 21, versus 22 and 23.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

I too have reasons as to why I am voting Democrat!

I am voting Democrat because babies should be aborted and ripped apart from a woman’s body. Legally!

I am voting Democrat because infanticide is cool.

I am voting Democrat because world peace flourishes through Socialist policies, and history proves it.

I am voting Democrat because experience is overrated.

I am voting Democrat because leadership is overrated as well.

I am voting Democrat because reading from a teleprompter equates intelligence.

I am voting Democrat because the rest of the world wants me to.

Yes, there are an infinite number of reasons to vote Democrat this year. Mob mentality is usually the best indicator for which candidate to vote for. Why vote with your brain when you can let Obama do his thug thizzle!

Lastly, I am voting Democrat because I want the communist version of John F. Kennedy in the White House.

Hat Tip: JammieWearingFool

UPDATE 1: There is another reason why I am voting Democrat!

I am voting Democrat because I support groups that support murdering American troops that fight for my freedom.